Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

FOOTBALL

Germany to start blind football league

Germany is starting a football league for blind and partially sighted players at the end of the month – just two years after the sport was first introduced to the country.

Published: 18 March 2008 17:12 CET

Blind football started in Brazil during the 1960s where there are now 80 teams around the world. The sport – which caters both for the blind and partially sighted – is played in other European countries such as England, France, Greece, Spain and Russia.

Blind football was only introduced here in May 2006 just before Germany hosted the last World Cup, but now less than two years later Germany will have an eight-team tournament when the league kicks off on March 29.

The Blindfootball-Bundesliga teams are scattered across Germany with teams in the capital Berlin, Hamburg-based St Pauli, Stuttgart, Mainz, Dortmund, Marburg, Essen and Chemnitz.

Each team has five players including a partially sighted goalkeeper. Helpers are positioned behind the goals to guide the players and the ball has a bell inside it to help players locate it.

Danish government party demands ban on messaging app Telegram

Abuse in the form of “shaming” (Danish: udskamning) is frequently directed at women with Middle Eastern backgrounds within large Danish groups on the app, and the Social Democrats therefore want it blocked in the country, equality minister Trine Bramsen and Mayor of Odense Peter Rahbek Juel said in an interview with newspaper Berlingske earlier this week.

“We have unfortunately seen some terrible examples and a lot of examples of the social media Telegram in particular being used to humiliate young ethnics [minorities, ed.] – particularly young women – and to shame them, well aware that it could have the consequence that their families exclude them or even do worse,” Bramsen said to news wire Ritzau.

The party also wants to clamp down on videos that intentionally provoke “negative social control”, they also said.

The Social Democrats have long held that people from minority backgrounds who live in Denmark can be subjected to social control, for example by parents, families or peer groups, which prevents them from fully engaging in society.

Bramsen and Juel said that criminal punishments should be raised for sharing images or videos where there is an “expectation” that they could result in “serious consequences related to negative social control”.

The party shared what it considers to be some of the offending content with Berlingske. It said this was posted by “apparently Danish boys and girls as well as young people with non-Danish ethnic heritage”. The examples come from a Telegram group with over 10,000 members.

Bramsen said that a ban Telegram would “to a greater degree” be an EU matter, but that she still wants to block the app in Denmark as soon as possible.

“Against other types of … illegal content, it’s possible to put up some filters. It will be a case for the courts in the end. But we must, through legislation, ensure that the right laws are in place,” she said.

“I don’t think we can look the other way as platforms are used for crime again and again and put young people’s lives in danger,” she said.

“You can ask yourself the obvious question of whether we should transfer the same legislation that applies in the physical world where you can close places down and apply bans on assembling at places where crime is repeatedly committed,” she said.

Telegram was launched in Russia in 2013.

SHOW COMMENTS

Url copied to clipboard!